A Companion To Research In Education

This volume offers a unique commentary on the diverse ways that educational inquiry is conceived, designed and critiqued. An international team of scholars examines cross-cutting themes of how research in education is conceptualised, characterised, contextualised, legitimated and represented. Contributions include specially commissioned essays, critical commentaries, vignettes, dialogues and cases. Each section discusses the significance of a complex terrain of ideas and critiques that can inform thinking and practice in educational research. The result is a thorough and accessible volume that offers fresh insights into the perspectives and challenges that shape diverse genres of research in education. ​

This state-of-the-art Companion assembles and assesses the extant research available on teacher education and provides clear guidelines on future directions. It addresses an important need in a collection that will be of value for teachers, teacher educators, policymakers and politicians. There has been little sustained, long-term or systematic research to provide empirical support for the broad aspects of teacher education policy, largely because such research has been chronically underfunded and based on traditional practitioner knowledge. Many of the changes to teacher education are contentious and yet are occurring in rapid succession. These policies and movements have important consequences for education, teacher quality and the future of the teaching profession. At the same time, the policies and initiatives that support these changes seem to be based more on ideology, business interests and tradition than on research and empirical findings. The nature, quality and effectiveness of teacher preparation have increasingly become a central focus for education policy worldwide in a fiercely argued debate among governments, think-tanks, world policy agencies, education researchers and teacher organisations.

This innovative book combines what most books separate: research as practical activity and research as intellectual engagement. It clarifies and makes explicit the methodological issues that underlie the journey from initial research idea to the finished report and beyond. The text moves the researcher logically through the research process and provides insights into methodology through an in-depth discussion of methods. It presents the research process as an engagement with text. This theme moves through the construction of text in the form of data and the deconstruction of text in analysis. Finally the focus moves to the reconstruction of text through the re-presentation of the research in the report. Following through each of these stages in turn, the chapters consider either a practical issue or a group of methods and interrogate the associated methodological concerns. In addition, the book also addresses the rarely explored issues of the researcher as writer and researcher identity as core elements of the research process. The book provides a range of insights and original perspectives. These successfully combine practical guidance with the invitation to consider the problematic nature of research as social practice. It is an ideal reference for those embarking on research for the first time and provides a new methodological agenda for established researchers.

A Companion to the Anthropology of Education presents a comprehensive and state-of-the-art overview of the field, exploring the social and cultural dimension of educational processes in both formal and nonformal settings. Explores theoretical and applied approaches to cultural practice in a diverse range of educational settings around the world, in both formal and non-formal contexts Includes contributions by leading educational anthropologists Integrates work from and on many different national systems of scholarship, including China, the United States, Africa, the Middle East, Colombia, Mexico, India, the United Kingdom, and Denmark Examines the consequences of history, cultural diversity, language policies, governmental mandates, inequality, and literacy for everyday educational processes

The Routledge Companion to Education presents the most comprehensive, up-to-date guide available to the major topics and theories in education. Forty specially commissioned chapters, covering all aspects of education, introduce you to the key thinkers, events, ideas, research and issues that have shaped the field of education.

In the contemporary world it is clear that the need to study beyond Masters Level is increasing in importance for a wide range of practitioners in diverse professional settings. Students across the world are choosing doctorates not only to become career academics, but to go beyond the academic arena, in order to make a personal and educational, as well as an economic investment, in their workplace careers and their lives. However for many doctoral students, both full-time and part-time, navigating the literature and key issues surrounding doctoral research can often be a challenge. Bringing together contributions from key names in the international education arena, The Routledge Doctoral Student’s Companion is a comprehensive guide to the literature surrounding doctorates, bringing together questions, challenges and solutions normally scattered over a wide range of texts. Accessible and wide-ranging, it covers all doctoral students need to know about: what doctoral education means in contemporary practice forming an identity and knowledge as a doctoral student the big questions which run throughout doctoral practice becoming a researcher the skills needed to conduct research integrating oneself into a scholarly community. Offering an extensive and rounded guide to undertaking doctoral research in a single volume, this book is essential reading for all full-time and part-time doctoral students in education and related disciplines.